by Jo Nesbo
‘Dad!’
‘Now.’
Fleance grabbed his seat belt, pulled it across his chest and just managed to buckle it before the front wheels hit the kerb and they reared up. The bonnet hit the shop window in the middle, and Fleance had the feeling it had opened and they were flying through a curtain of white glass into whatever was inside. Then, as he looked around in amazement, knowing something was dislocated, there was a break in the course of events and he knew he must have passed out. There was an infernal ringing in his ears. His father lay motionless with his head on the wheel.
‘Dad!’
Fleance shook him.
‘Dad!’
No reaction. The windscreen was gone, and something on the bonnet was shining. Fleance had to blink before he realised it was what it looked like. Rings. Necklaces. Bracelets. And in front of him on the wall was written in gold letters: JACOBS & SONS. JEWELLERS. They had driven into a bloody jewellery shop. And the ringing he could hear wasn’t coming from his head, it was the burglar alarm. Now it dawned on him. The burglar alarm. All the town’s banks, the casinos and larger jewellery shops were connected to the central switchboard at police HQ. Who immediately contacted patrol cars in the district. Dad had known where he was going after all.
Fleance tried to undo his seat belt, but couldn’t. He yanked and tugged, but the buckle refused to move.
The sergeant sat on his bike, counted the seconds and looked at the car protruding from the shop in front of them. The alarm drowned most sounds, but he could see from the smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe that the engine was running.
‘Whad are we waidin’ for, eh?’ asked the guy on the Electra Glide. There was something irritating about the way he spoke. ‘Led’s go ged ’em.’
‘We’ll wait a while longer,’ the sergeant said and counted. ‘Twenty-one, twenty-two.’
‘How long, eh?’
‘Until we know the guy who ordered this job has kept his promise,’ said the sergeant. Twenty-five, twenty-six.
‘Doh. I wanna finish this head-choppin’ stuff and leave this shide down.’
‘Wait.’ The sergeant quietly observed him. The guy looked like a grown man. Two grown men. The guy was as broad as a barn door and had muscles everywhere, even in his face. Yet he wore a brace on his teeth, like a boy. The sergeant had seen it before, in prison, where the inmates who pumped iron and took anabolic steroids grew such powerful jawbones that their teeth curled. Twenty-nine, thirty. Thirty seconds and no sirens. ‘Away you go,’ the sergeant said.
‘Thanks.’ The barn door pulled a long-barrelled Colt from his waistband and the sword from its sheath, dismounted his bike and set off towards the car. He nonchalantly ran the sword blade along the wall and over the post of the NO PARKING sign. The sergeant studied the back of his leather jacket. A pirate flag with the skull over a swastika. No style. He sighed. ‘Cover him with the shotgun, Colin.’
Colin smoothed his walrus moustache with a bandaged hand, then broke open a short-barrelled shotgun and inserted two shells.
The sergeant saw a couple of faces appear in windows across the road, but still heard no sirens, only the monotonous, unceasing burglar alarm as the guy entered the shop and approached the car. He put the sword under his arm, pulled open the passenger door with his free hand and pointed the revolver at the person sitting there. The sergeant automatically clenched his teeth as he waited for the bang.
Fleance tore at the belt, but the infuriating buckle was stuck. He tried to wriggle out. Fleance raised his knees to his chin, swung himself round in the seat and placed his feet against the passenger door to push himself over towards his father and the driver’s seat. At that moment he caught sight of the man stepping into the shop with a sword and a revolver in his hands. It was too late to get away now, and Fleance didn’t even have time to think how frightened he was.
The passenger door was wrenched open. Fleance saw the gleam of a dental brace and a revolver being raised and realised the man was out of reach for the kick he had planned. So instead he reached out with one foot for the opened door in sheer desperation. A normal shoe wouldn’t have fitted behind the internal door handle, but the long thin toe of Macbeth’s old winkle-pickers slipped in easily. He glimpsed the blackness of eternity in the revolver muzzle, then pulled the door to as hard as he could. There was a smack as the door hit the man’s wrist and jammed it in the opening. And a muffled thud as the revolver hit the floor.
Fleance heard swearing, slammed the door shut with one hand while searching for the revolver with the other.
The door was torn open again, and there stood the dental-brace man with a sword raised over his head. Fleance patted the floor everywhere – under the seat – where the hell had the gun gone? Dental Brace then obviously realised that the door opening was too narrow for him to swing the sword and he would have to stab with it. He brought his elbow back, aimed the point at Fleance and leaped at him. Fleance lashed out and met him halfway with two outstretched legs, which sent the guy staggering backwards through the room to finally topple back and smash a glass counter in his fall.
‘Colin,’ sighed the sergeant. ‘Please go in and bring this vaudeville to an end.’
‘Right, boss.’ Before dismounting Colin checked he would still be able to pull the trigger with the hand Macbeth had impaled with a dagger.
Fleance had given up his struggle, realising that he was trapped, he wouldn’t be able to free himself from the seat belt before it was too late. So he lay sideways on the seat, watched the guy with the sword stand up from behind the smashed counter, fragments of glass falling from his broad shoulders. He was more careful this time. Took up a position beyond Fleance’s reach. Checked he had a good grip on the sword. Fleance knew he was aiming for where he could do most instant damage and remain out of Fleance’s reach. His groin.
‘Bloody shide down,’ the man snarled, spat on the sword, brought back his arm, took the necessary step closer and bared a row of clenched teeth. The soft, warm shop lighting made his brace sparkle, which for one instant looked like it belonged to the shop’s inventory. Fleance raised the gun and fired. Glimpsed a surprised expression and a small black hole in the middle of the brace before the man fell.
The pianoforte’s soft, discreet tones tickled Macbeth’s ears.
‘Dear guests, acquaintances, colleagues and friends of the casino,’ he said, looking at the faces surrounding him, ‘even if not everyone has arrived yet, I’d like on behalf of the woman you all know and fear—’ muted polite laughter and nods to a laughing Lady ‘—to wish you a warm welcome and propose a toast before we take our seats at the table.’
Colin stopped when he saw his cousin from the south fall to the floor. The noise of the shot had drowned the alarm, and he saw a hand holding a revolver sticking out of the car-door opening. He reacted quickly. Fired one barrel. Saw the shell hit, saw the light-coloured inside of the door turn red, the window in the door explode and the revolver fall to the shop floor.
Colin walked quickly towards the motionless car. Adrenaline had made his senses so receptive that he took everything in. The faint vibration of the exhaust pipe, the absence of any heads in the smashed rear window and a sound he just recognised through the drone of the alarm. The belching sound of revving. Shit!
Colin ran the last steps to the door opening. On the passenger seat sat a suit-clad boy in a strangely distorted position. With his seat belt on, a blood-covered hand and his left foot stretched over to where the driver lay lifeless slumped over the wheel. Colin raised the shotgun as the engine raced, caught traction and the car rushed backwards. The open door hit Colin in the chest, but he managed to stick out his left hand and cling to the top of the door. They raced out of the shop, but Colin didn’t let go. He still had the shotgun in his aching right hand, but to get a shot into the car he would have to move it to under his left arm . . .
Fleance had managed to get his foot over
to the pedals, push his father’s foot away and press the clutch so that he could move the gear lever out of neutral and into reverse. Then he gradually raised his heel off the clutch while pressing the accelerator with the tip of his shoe. The open passenger door had hit some guy who was still hanging on, but now they were out of the shop, on their way back. Fleance couldn’t see a damn thing, but he gave it full throttle and hoped they wouldn’t crash into anything.
The guy on the door was struggling to do something, and in a flash he saw what. The muzzle of a shotgun was protruding from under his arm. The next moment it went off.
Fleance blinked.
The guy with the gun was gone. Also the passenger door. He looked over the dashboard and saw the door and the guy wrapped around the post of the NO PARKING sign.
And he saw a side street.
He stamped on the brake and pressed the clutch before the engine died. Checked his mirror. Saw four men dismounting from their motorbikes and coming towards him. Their bikes were parked side by side barricading the narrow street; the Volvo wouldn’t be able to reverse over them. Fleance grabbed the gear lever, noticed now that his hand was bleeding, tried to find first gear but couldn’t, probably because from the position he was in he couldn’t press the clutch right down. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The engine coughed and spluttered, about to breathe its last. He saw in his mirror they had drawn guns. No, machine guns. This was it. This was where it ended. And a strange thought struck him. How bitter it was that he wouldn’t be taking his final exam in law now that he had finally cracked the code and understood the thinking: the difference between wrong and illegal, moral and regulation. Between power and crime.
He felt a warm hand on his, on top of the gear stick.
‘Who’s driving, son? You or your dad?’
Banquo’s eyes were a little dimmed, but he sat upright in the seat with both hands on the wheel. And the next second the engine’s old voice rose to a hoarse roar, and they skidded away on the cobblestones as the machine guns popped and crackled behind them as if it were Chinese New Year.
Macbeth looked at Lady. She sat two seats away from him enthusiastically making conversation with her dinner partner, Jano-something-or-other. The property shark from Capitol. She had placed her hand on his arm. Last year one of the town’s powerful factory owners had sat in the shark’s chair and captured her attention. But this year the factory was closed and its owner was not invited.
‘You and I should have a chat,’ Tourtell said.
‘Yes,’ Macbeth said, turning to the mayor, who was pushing a heavily laden fork of veal into his open jaws. ‘What about?’
‘What about? About the town, of course.’
Macbeth watched with fascination as the mayor’s many chins expanded and compressed as he chewed, like an accordion of flesh.
‘About what’s best for the town,’ Tourtell said with a smile. As though that was a joke. Macbeth knew he should concentrate on the conversation, but he couldn’t keep his thoughts together, hold them here, down on the earth. Now for example he was wondering whether the calf’s mother was still alive. And if so, if she could sense that now, right now, her child was being eaten.
‘There’s this radio reporter,’ Macbeth said. ‘Kite. He spreads malicious gossip and obviously has an unfortunate agenda. How do you neutralise a person like that?’
‘Reporters,’ Tourtell said, rolling his eyes. ‘Now look, that’s difficult. They answer only to their editors. And even if the editors in turn answer to owners who want to earn money, reporters are solemnly convinced that they’re serving a higher purpose. Very difficult. You’re not eating, Macbeth. Worried?’
‘Me? Not at all.’
‘Really? With one chief commissioner dead, another missing and all the responsibility on your shoulders? If you aren’t worried, I’d be worried, Macbeth!’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ Macbeth looked for help from Lady, who was sitting on the mayor’s other side, but she was now engaged in conversation with a woman who was the town council’s financial adviser or something.
‘Excuse me,’ Macbeth said and stood up. Got a quizzical, slightly concerned look from Lady and strode quickly into reception.
‘Give me the phone, Jack.’
The receptionist passed him the phone, and Macbeth dialled the number of the HQ switchboard. It answered on the fifth ring. Was that a long or a short time to wait for an answer from the police? He didn’t know, he had never considered it before. But now he would have to. Think about that sort of thing. As well. ‘Put me through to Patrols.’
‘OK.’
He could hear he had been put through, and the phone at the other end began to ring. Macbeth looked at his watch. They were taking their time.
‘I never see you in the gaming room, Jack.’
‘I don’t work as a croupier any more, sir. Not after . . . well, that night, you know.’
‘I see. It takes a while to get over.’
Jack shrugged. ‘It’s not just that. In fact, I think being a receptionist suits me better than being a croupier. So it’s no tragedy.’
‘But don’t you earn a good deal more as a croupier?’
‘If you’re a fish out of water, it doesn’t matter how much you earn. The fish can’t breathe and dies beside a fat bagful of money. That’s a tragedy, sir.’
Macbeth was about to answer when a voice announced that he had got through to Patrols.
‘Macbeth here. I was wondering if you’d had any reports about a shooting in Gallows Hill during the last hour.’
‘No. Should we have done?’
‘We have a customer here who said he’d just driven by and heard a loud bang. Must have been a puncture.’
‘Must have been.’
‘So there’s nothing in District 2 West?’
‘Only a break-in at a jeweller’s, sir. The closest patrol car was some distance away, but we’re heading there now.’
‘I see. Well, have a good evening.’
‘You, too, Inspector.’
Macbeth rang off. Stared down at the carpet, at the strange needlework, the flowery shapes. He had never thought about them, but now it was as if they were trying to tell him something.
‘Sir?’
Macbeth looked up. Jack had a worried expression on his face.
‘Sir, you’ve got a nosebleed.’
Macbeth put a hand to his top lip, realised the receptionist was right and hurried to the toilet.
Banquo accelerated down the main road. The wind howled outside the doorless passenger side. They passed the Obelisk. It wouldn’t be long before they were at the central station now.
‘Can you see them?’
Fleance said something.
‘Louder!’
‘No.’
Banquo couldn’t hear in the ear on Fleance’s side, either because the auditory canal was blocked with blood or because the bullet had taken his hearing as well. However it wasn’t that shot which bothered him. He looked at the petrol gauge – the indicator had dropped remarkably in the four or five minutes since they had left the shopping area. The machine guns might have sounded harmless, but they had holed the petrol tank. But it wasn’t those shots that bothered him either; they had enough petrol to get to the Inverness and safety.
‘Who are they, Dad? Why are they after us?’
There, in front of them, was the central station.
‘I don’t know, Fleance.’ Banquo concentrated on the road. And breathing. He had to breathe, get air into his lungs. Carry on. Carry on until Fleance was safe. That, and nothing else, was what mattered. Not the road that had begun to blur in front of him, not the shot that had hit him.
‘Someone must have known we would come that way, Dad. The traffic lights, that wasn’t normal. They knew exactly when we would pass Gallows Hill.’
Banquo had worked th
at one out. But it meant nothing now. What did mean something was that they had passed the central station and that the lights of the Inverness lay before them. Park in front of the entrance, get Fleance inside.
‘I can see them now, Dad. They’re at least two hundred metres behind us.’
More than enough if they didn’t get held up. He should have had the blue light and the siren in the car. Banquo stared at the Inverness. Light. He could drive across Workers’ Square at a pinch. The sirens. Something stuck in his throat. Stuck in his mind.
‘Did you hear any sirens, Fleance?’
‘Eh?’
‘Sirens. Patrol cars. Did you hear them at the jeweller’s?’
‘No.’
‘Absolutely sure? There are always loads of patrol cars in District 2 West.’
‘Absolutely sure.’
Banquo felt the pain and darkness come. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘No, Macbeth, my boy . . .’ He held the wheel and turned left.
‘Dad! This isn’t the way to the Inverness.’
Banquo pressed the horn, pulled the Volvo out from behind the car in front and accelerated. He could feel the paralysing pain from his back spreading to his chest. Soon he wouldn’t be able to keep his right hand on the wheel. The bullet probably hadn’t made a big hole in the seat, but it had hit it. And that was the shot that worried him.
In front of them there was nothing. Only the container harbour, the sea and darkness.
But there was one last possibility.
Macbeth studied himself in the mirror above the sink. The bleeding had stopped, but he knew what it meant. That his mucous membranes couldn’t take any more brew, and he should give it up for a while. It was different when he was young: then his body could take any amount of punishment. But if he continued now his nose would ache and bleed and his brain would spin until his head unscrewed itself from his neck. What he needed was a break. So why, thinking this, did he roll up a banknote and place it at the right-hand end of the line of powder on the sink? Because this was the exception. This was the critical point when he needed it. The point when he had to tackle the fat perverted mayor on the one side and the Norse Rider brigand who it seemed hadn’t managed to keep to their agreement on the other. And Lady on the third. No, she wasn’t a problem, she was the alpha and the omega, his birth, life and death. His reason for being. But just as their love could give him a tremulous joy, he could also feel the pain when he thought of what might be taken from him – her power now consisted in not loving him as much as loving him. He inhaled, sucked the brew up into his brain, hard, until it hit the inside of his scalp, or so it felt. Again looked at himself in the mirror. His face contorted and changed. He had white hair. A woman’s red lips. A scar grew across his face. New chins extended under his chin. Tears filled his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He had to stop now. He had seen people who had sniffed so much they had ended up with prosthetic noses. Had to stop while there was still time, while there was something to save. He had to switch to a syringe.